Dec. 17th: Dancing little marionette, are you happy now?

Ryan Adams-Gold (Lost Highway,2001)

Gold is Ryan Adam's second solo album, after 2000's Heartbreaker. It was meant to be a double album but isn't, condensed onto a single disc (and a limited 5 track bonus side/CD) in order to allow the record label to pay him less money. It still lasts over 70 minutes; at 16 tracks the initial impression when I listened to it was 'it's overlong', and it is. There are undoubtedly a lot of good songs here but about halfway through my mind began to wander. It appears you really can have too much of a good thing.
When Adams is good, he's very good- see for example the much-covered 'When The Stars Are Blue', 'Answering Bell', 'Somehow, Someday'. My tolerance for alt. country rock wavered at the nearly 10-minute-long 'Nobody Girl' however....by the time 'Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd' rolled around I was pressing fastforward willing the Adams overdose to end. Which is a shame, really, because this is a genuinely great album, in small doses.

Dec. 16th: Turmoil! Carnage!

Bjork- Volta (One Little Indian, 2007)

I'll say it now. Mostly of the time I don't 'get' Bjork, past about 1993. Debut is great. I was 7 when Post came out and bought it on the strength of 'It's Oh So Quiet'...heh, yeah. Post was a surprise. Telegram isn't bad either....but Vespertine? Medulla? Nah, not my thing.Again, this was going for 8 euro in FNAC and I thought I'd listen to the reviews and buy it.
Volta is not going to make me into a Bjork fan. It was billed as 'poppy', 'accessible', but well, it's not. It just sounds angry. The sheer noise of it makes my head hurt.
This is an album full of collaborations- Timbaland, Antony Hegarty, etc etc. Timbaland + Bjork should = pop genius.It doesn't/ Out of their 3 collaborations, Innocence comes closest, but no cigar.
Hmm, I don't know what more I could say about Volta. If I had to sum it up: Brass! Tribal! Squelchy!

Sorry, Bjork. Maybe next time, eh?

Dec. 15th: The police always come late, if they come at all

Tracy Chapman- Tracy Chapman ( Elektra, 1988)

This was another 'going cheap in a French record shop' buy, which I mainly bought for 'Talkin' Bout A Revolution' and 'Fast Car'. Those two songs have been overplayed to the point where the meaning was lost to me, but listening properly to the lyrics for the first time reminds how good Chapman actually is. The folk influences are more obvious to me over a whole album, and it's clear that 'Talkin'...' and 'Fast Car' aren't even the best songs on the LP. That honour probably goes to either 'For My Lover' or the frankly un-nerving unaccompanied 'Behind The Wall' which relates a domestic violence situation through the eyes of the couple's neighbour. Utterly despairing but absolutely beautiful. This album was something of a pleasant surprise.

Dec. 14th: How do I know you feel it? How do I know it's true?

The Blue Nile-Hats (Linn Records, 1989)

The Blue Nile are a not-terribly-prolific (4 albums in nearly 30 years) Scottish band, who so impressed a non-record-releasing hifi company with their songs that they set up a label in order to release their music.

I love two Blue Nile songs- debut single 'I Love This  Life', which is bloody impossible to find in any kind of physical format; it's on a 2004 single currently going for silly money on eBay but that's it- and 'The Downtown Lights', which is on this LP. I've never actually managed to listen all the way through.

On first listen the album is exceedingly 80s. It's almost entirely electronic and chockablock with synths but hasn't dated badly at all. TDW is still brilliant and definitely the best thing here, but  there are songs of similar quality galore; 'Over The Hillside', 'Headlights On The Parade'...

With over half the songs being more than 5 minutes long, this isn't a particularly instant or commercial album, and it requires concentration, but it is a rewarding listen. A couple of uptempos break up any possible monotony; Paul Buchanan's voice tends to sound mournful no matter what he sings.

This got huge critical acclaim when it came out (e.g. 5 star Q magazine review) and I'd probably agree with that. For an album which came out an eternity ago in music terms, it bears up to scrutiny very well

Dec. 13th: A string of pearls goes on forever

 Les Rita Mitsouko- Variety (English Version) (Because Music, 2007)

Les Rita Mitsouko were one of the biggest alternative bands in France of the 80s; a duo of Fred Chichin and Catherine Ringer who first formed and played in various Parisian art spaces in the early 80s. They were active until Chichin died of cancer in 2007-this was the last album credited to the band, an English version of their previous 2007 album Variéty.

I am a big Catherine Ringer fan- more as a musician than as an occasional porn star, admittedly. To me, she's the French version of Annie Lennox: she has a strong, distinctive voice and personality, and just generally kicks ass. The English version of Variety doesn't do her justice, and isn't really a fitting legacy for Fred.

Musically, both versions aren't the best work LRM ever did. A bit heavy on the soft-rock, nowhere near as interesting as some of their earlier work. There are some great songs on the album though: 'Ding Dang Dong' and 'Ma Vielle Ville' particularly, I love- in the original language. Variety was the first LRM album recorded in an English version,and it shows. Lyrically it's somewhat lacking. 'Ding Dang Dong' becomes a straightforward party tune with no real emotion depth; 'Ma Vielle Ville' (retitled 'Paris (France)') changes from talking about homesickness and memory to what appears to be a musical advert for the Paris tourist board.  Also, in my view Ringer just sounds better in French, like she actually means what she's singing.

Variety isn't a bad album,but it's not particularly good either. The French original is much better, as the musical shortfalls are compensated for by the lyrics. If you were to get one, I'd get that, preferably. Or even better, get Catherine Ringer Chante Les Rita Mitsouko and More à La Cigale, her post-Fred live CD of LRM songs and appropriate covers. It contains all of the good songs on Variéty, in French, and with much more energy than on disc

Dec, 12th: hanging like Christmas stars, from a golden vein

Antony & The Johnsons- The Crying Light (Rough Trade, 2009)

 The Crying Light is Antony & The Johnsons' third record, the follow up to their 2005 breakthrough, I Am A Bird Now. I bought TCR off the back of that album's Mercury Prize nomination and general hype. I'm not sure about it, if I'm honest.

It may just be that it's an album to admire rather than enjoy. I can see the talent and the quality that's evident, but Antony Hegarty's voice seems to have one tone whether he's happy or sad, and the  constant tremolo is a bit of an acquired taste.

The focus of the album has shifted from I Am A Bird Now's almost autobiographical gender and identity-based songs to a broader, more environmental, nature-based feel (For example 'Another World' : "I need another world, this one's nearly gone...")  which is at least a change, although the overall feel of despair still pervades the whole thing.

Listening to this album is a bit like being in a German cabaret with a depressed Nina Simone. It's nice enough for one of two songs, but over a whole CD's worth of baroque pop and emotional piano tinkling it gets slightly wearing. 

Press pause

Due to exams happening NOW and me being not terribly confident, I'm pausing this until the 18th. The CDs are listened-to, but I don't have the luxury of time to write them up til then. Sadface. But I'm not giving up,oh no siree Bob.
à bientôt...